Shouldn't You Be Proud? (Or, Fantastic Heights and Dizzying Lows): A Collection of Poetry, Prose, Ideas, Confessions, Lyrics and Other Things

By Kieran Graulich

How does anxiety and depression affect our perception of and experience of reality? Sort of a loaded and esoteric question, perhaps one to be answered through loaded and esoteric poetry and stories. Through the art of free form poetry and literature, Kieran Graulich explores the nuances of anxiety through the lens of a confused, depressed everyman who asks the questions we may be too afraid to ask ourselves, but rest at the bottom of our heads: Do we really matter? What does our place in this world mean? Why can we feel so small yet so important at the same time? To put it bluntly, what and why does it mean to BE, and how does anxiety affect our relationship with being and conceiving reality? Features work of Graulich's from 2013-2015, detailing personal and fictional experiences with a multitude of subjects (heartbreak, social anxiety, eating disorders, homeless people, bright peppy stuff like that) that are all tied together under one theme of exploration and unsureness. Fun for the whole family!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483559520

Book preview

You Used a Painting in Your Court Case: A Discourse on Truth

You used a painting in your court case

Your story became my gospel

I wish that I could see without prism shades

I can shed my skin, but will still feel cold

I saw you burnt into the wall

Your silhouette etched into the background of my iris

I still sit in that corner

Rest my head against your ghost

A million realities

A thousand of the same day

I turned a mirror to the jury

They say, "What do you see?"

Spider eyes

Poly sides

Kaleidoscopic social suicide

A shattered mirror shows too many of me

You kill the butterflies in my eyes

You make my head stand still

I get dizzy when it comes to me all at once

I can’t be aware of everything

And sure of nothing

Jay Gatsby and the Brooklyn Lights

        (A Night on the Williamsburg Bridge Staring at the J Train)

In the days after the revolution

We walked across the bridge

Newly tattooed graffiti

Illuminating the dim granite skyline

They read:

Look away

Having fun yet?

Go back home

Go back home

I grasp the handrails

And off in the distance

I see the lights

Of the Verrazano

Blinking red lights

That are eyes

On off on off

They are staring at me

They are disappointed

They feel alone

They are screaming.

Having fun yet?

The J Train runs by

I think

I’m pretty sure

On off on off on off on off

Go back home

Unable to break my stare

And in that moment the J train passes

The most sickening silence

I have ever heard in my life

The screams have ceased

In their wake

The flashing of two lights on a bridge

Silently pleading

Go back home

On off

Look away

I’m sorry

On that bridge

I felt the weight go out

From underneath me

The shit that makes people jump

You nomad

On off on off on off

This is far from my home

Far from a hug

A touch

A warm kiss

A suburban backyard

Look away

But I felt home

In those lights

I saw it

Maybe

That was why it was so excruciating

On off

Having fun yet?

And I stood there

As close to home

As I could get

And I realized

When I grasped on those rails

I was banging on the bars of my cage

And I stared

And I stared

Until all I saw

All that was

Was the two lights and me

No bridge, no sky, no sea

On off on off on off on off

I’m sorry

Come back home

Keep Hephaestus Waiting, at Home: A Love Poem, of Which I Don’t Write Many (No Good at Em!)

(or Love Through Completion)

I saw you once

In a dream

My breast was abound

With lovesick nausea

She wrapped her hands around my neck

Her scarlet nails

Seemed to lock into place on my skin

My hand

Seemed to fit into the lull of her cheekbone

Cradled in her frame

Her phantom form fit snugly into my clutches

I seldom kissed you

I brushed my hand against the curves of your